18 research outputs found
The Matching Problem in General Graphs is in Quasi-NC
We show that the perfect matching problem in general graphs is in Quasi-NC.
That is, we give a deterministic parallel algorithm which runs in
time on processors. The result is obtained by a
derandomization of the Isolation Lemma for perfect matchings, which was
introduced in the classic paper by Mulmuley, Vazirani and Vazirani [1987] to
obtain a Randomized NC algorithm.
Our proof extends the framework of Fenner, Gurjar and Thierauf [2016], who
proved the analogous result in the special case of bipartite graphs. Compared
to that setting, several new ingredients are needed due to the significantly
more complex structure of perfect matchings in general graphs. In particular,
our proof heavily relies on the laminar structure of the faces of the perfect
matching polytope.Comment: Accepted to FOCS 2017 (58th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of
Computer Science
Fast Generation of Random Spanning Trees and the Effective Resistance Metric
We present a new algorithm for generating a uniformly random spanning tree in
an undirected graph. Our algorithm samples such a tree in expected
time. This improves over the best previously known bound
of -- that follows from the work of
Kelner and M\k{a}dry [FOCS'09] and of Colbourn et al. [J. Algorithms'96] --
whenever the input graph is sufficiently sparse.
At a high level, our result stems from carefully exploiting the interplay of
random spanning trees, random walks, and the notion of effective resistance, as
well as from devising a way to algorithmically relate these concepts to the
combinatorial structure of the graph. This involves, in particular,
establishing a new connection between the effective resistance metric and the
cut structure of the underlying graph
New Graph Algorithms via Polyhedral Techniques
In this thesis we give new algorithms for two fundamental graph problems. We develop novel ways of using linear programming formulations, even exponential-sized ones, to extract structure from problem instances and to guide algorithms in making progress. Somewhat surprisingly, similar polyhedral techniques can be harnessed in the two seemingly disparate settings.
In the first part of the thesis we address a benchmark problem in combinatorial optimization: the asymmetric traveling salesman problem (ATSP). It consists in finding the shortest tour that visits all vertices of a given directed graph with weights on edges. Due to its NP-hardness, the theoretical study of algorithms for ATSP has focused on approximation algorithms: ones that are provably both efficient and give solutions competitive with the optimum. Specifically, a rho-approximation algorithm for ATSP is one that runs in polynomial time and always outputs a tour that is at most rho times longer than the shortest tour. Finding such an approximation algorithm with rho bounded (i.e., a constant factor) had been a long-standing open problem.
In this thesis, we give such an algorithm. Our approximation guarantee is analyzed with respect to the standard linear programming relaxation, and thus our result also confirms the conjectured constant integrality gap of that relaxation. Our techniques build upon the constant-factor approximation algorithm for the special case of node-weighted metrics due to Svensson. In particular, we give a generic reduction to structured instances that resemble but are more general than those arising from node-weighted metrics. This reduction takes advantage of a laminar family of vertex sets that arises from the linear programming relaxation.
In the second part of the thesis we address the perfect matching problem. The first polynomial-time algorithm for it, given by Edmonds in 1965, is historically associated with the introduction of the class P and our notion that ``polynomial-time'' means ``efficient''. That algorithm is sequential and deterministic. We have also known since the 1980s that the matching problem has efficient parallel algorithms if the use of randomness is allowed. Formally, it is in the class RNC, i.e., it has randomized algorithms that use polynomially many processors and run in polylogarithmic time. However, we do not know if randomness is necessary - that is, whether the matching problem is in the class NC.
In this thesis we show that the matching problem is in quasi-NC. That is, we give a deterministic parallel algorithm that runs in O(log^3 n) time on n^{O(log^2 n)} processors. The result is obtained by a derandomization of the Isolation Lemma for perfect matchings, which was introduced in the classic paper by Mulmuley, Vazirani and Vazirani to obtain an RNC algorithm. Our proof extends the framework of Fenner, Gurjar and Thierauf, who proved the analogous result in the special case of bipartite graphs. Compared to that setting, several new ingredients are needed due to the significantly more complex structure of perfect matchings in general graphs. In particular, our proof heavily relies on the laminar structure of the faces of the perfect matching polytope
Streaming Robust Submodular Maximization: A Partitioned Thresholding Approach
We study the classical problem of maximizing a monotone submodular function
subject to a cardinality constraint k, with two additional twists: (i) elements
arrive in a streaming fashion, and (ii) m items from the algorithm's memory are
removed after the stream is finished. We develop a robust submodular algorithm
STAR-T. It is based on a novel partitioning structure and an exponentially
decreasing thresholding rule. STAR-T makes one pass over the data and retains a
short but robust summary. We show that after the removal of any m elements from
the obtained summary, a simple greedy algorithm STAR-T-GREEDY that runs on the
remaining elements achieves a constant-factor approximation guarantee. In two
different data summarization tasks, we demonstrate that it matches or
outperforms existing greedy and streaming methods, even if they are allowed the
benefit of knowing the removed subset in advance.Comment: To appear in NIPS 201
Fairness in Streaming Submodular Maximization over a Matroid Constraint
Streaming submodular maximization is a natural model for the task of
selecting a representative subset from a large-scale dataset. If datapoints
have sensitive attributes such as gender or race, it becomes important to
enforce fairness to avoid bias and discrimination. This has spurred significant
interest in developing fair machine learning algorithms. Recently, such
algorithms have been developed for monotone submodular maximization under a
cardinality constraint.
In this paper, we study the natural generalization of this problem to a
matroid constraint. We give streaming algorithms as well as impossibility
results that provide trade-offs between efficiency, quality and fairness. We
validate our findings empirically on a range of well-known real-world
applications: exemplar-based clustering, movie recommendation, and maximum
coverage in social networks.Comment: Accepted to ICML 2